Fashion designer Katherine Hamnett has said that the evidence of mistreatment of factory workers in Bangladesh uncovered by an ITV Exposure investigation shows the fashion industry is "a stinking business and most of our clothes are covered in blood".

"When I saw the grief of those families finding their relatives, it's just devastating.

"This is appalling, this is the state of the fashion industry, this is the reality of the fashion industry, it's a stinking business and most of our clothes are covered in blood".

The designer is calling on the EU to take decisive action against companies who fail to ensure that workers making their clothes in countries like Bangladesh are adequately protected.

Katherine Hamnett holds up one of her t-shirts with the slogan "No more fashion victims". Credit: ITV News

"There should be penalties enforced within our economic blocks if there are transgressions by brands and they should be penalties that hurt, we're not talking about £20,000, they spend that on champagne in a night, it needs to be £5 million, £10million.

She added: "Then the brands will police it [the industry] better, they will be following the auditors, they will be sending people undercover to make sure, this is the only way you can do it".